America's Edge - Our Skills, Our Kids

Our Skills, Our Kids

Each decade, 30 million American children enter high school but only 6 million of them ever receive a college degree. The remaining 24 million either drop out; complete high school and enter the workforce; or attend a community college or university for a couple of years.

Each year, over half a trillion dollars of local, state and federal monies is focused on students bound for college. Technical and vocational education, by contrast, receives less than two percent of that amount.

Increasingly, blue collar kids find the path to college blocked by exorbitant tuition costs, intense academic competition, static enrollment levels in colleges and universities, and the financial realities facing their families. Entering the workforce immediately after high school seems their only realistic option.

And yet, America faces a growing skills shortage. Labor economists predict that "a serious lack of skilled workers will begin in 2005 and grow to 5.3 million in 2010 and 21 million in 2020."

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) put the issue in perspective. "Today's skill deficiencies and tomorrow's skill demands will require significant investment in education and training. Employers estimate that 39 percent of their current workforce and 26 percent of new hires will have basic skill deficiencies ... Seventy-five percent of the American workforce will need to be retrained merely to retain their jobs."

I support a national skills initiative that:

  • Re-emphases technical and vocational classes in America's high schools;
  • Expands the availability of industrial technology and information technology courses in America's community colleges;
  • Creates High Tech Institutes in each state that focus on 21st Century manufacturing technologies and materials: and
  • Provides a pathway for all Americans to readily upgrade their skills to remain competitive throughout their working lives.

I believe that this national skills initiative should be part of a broader effort to revitalize America's industrial sector.

Please add my name to the blackboard.

I want the entire country to know that I want to sharpen AMERICA'S EDGE.

And I want the world to know that OUR SKILLS will triumph in any global competition and that OUR KIDS will adapt to the ever-changing demands of tomorrow's workplaces.